


we can forget this place

by cynical_optimist



Series: Stay [2]
Category: Lovely Little Losers
Genre: Anger, Angst, M/M, i have many feelings, my own righteous fury channeled into peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 13:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5051143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cynical_optimist/pseuds/cynical_optimist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometime it feels like he’s playing Snakes and Ladders, each movement closer to Balth undermined by the rules or Ben or whatever it is that’s stuck between them. It doesn’t matter anyway, not really. He just wants Balth to be happy.</p><p>In response to PUNISHMENT.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we can forget this place

**Author's Note:**

> This is not fluff in the slightest. Enjoy! x

Peter hates it when Balthazar isn’t happy. It’s never just a frown or a downward tilt of the mouth; his entire body seems to radiate sorrow. It is in the slope of his shoulders, the slouch of his steps, the particular angle at which his head hangs. It is in his eyes, usually so bright, so quietly cunning. It is in the very air around him, and everyone around him can feel it keenly.

He is absent at dinner, and Peter sits in silence with Ben and Freddie, glaring at his plate. The food is bland and dry, and he isn’t sure if that’s the fault of the cook or his emotional state. Both, probably, depending on who cooked it. He can hear Freddie squirming in her seat, but Ben stays perfectly still. Bea and Meg still aren’t back, too caught up in their “day on the town”, and Kit is at work. No one has taken the time to text them. Peter won’t risk complaining, not with the awkward friendships he’s salvaged, and Ben knows what the reaction will be. The silence stretches between them.

“Look,” Ben says, about ten minutes in, and the word shoots out like he’d been trying to hold it in. Peter doesn’t look up. “It was the rules, okay? You broke the rules, and I’m sorry, but that’s just what the punishment was. I was being just.”

Freddie sputters next to him. “Well—I mean—they did, but it wasn’t exactly diplomatic, was it?”

“I am in control of the footage,” Ben insists, and Peter remembers with clarity his protests at Freddie’s dictatorial tendencies. “It fit the crime, okay?”

Peter looks up then, abandoning his cutlery. “Fit the crime?” he repeats, incredulous. “ _Fit the crime_. Every single punishment so far has been light-hearted, almost fun. Even my kissing punishment, as ridiculous as the fact that you were punishing me in the first place was. This crossed a line, Ben, a huge fu—“

“You broke the rules!”

“ _I_ broke the rules! You saw him walk away,” Peter says, and it hurts but it’s true, and Balthazar doesn’t deserve any of what Ben has done. He takes a deep breath, trying to calm his thudding heart. “Look,” he says. “Just don’t put up the footage. You can do whatever the hell you want to me, but Balth doesn’t deserve this.”

Ben huffs. “ _You_ would say that.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Freddie stands, slamming her hands on the table. “Guys!” she shouts, and Ben and Peter both jump. “The punishment is decided; it’s over now. Maybe it wasn’t so fair. Maybe it was. Can we please just eat?”

Peter clenches his jaw, catching a hurt puppy look from Ben. “I’m not hungry,” he says, picking up his plate and pushing his chair out.

“I’m not happy about this, either,” Ben shouts after him, and he scoffs under his breath. “But rules are rules!”

Peter scrapes his plate into the bin and leaves it in the sink; he’ll wash it later, when Ben and Freddie aren’t sitting just a room over, discussing his failed romantic endeavours. He heads into his room instead, and he can still almost hear them, plates scraping over the quiet hum of conversation. He wants to pull his hair out.

As if it hadn’t been awkward enough between them, the traces of an almost kiss and half-formed arguments permeating their exchanges, Ben had to go and pull a stunt like that. He remembers the almost-smile on Balthazar’s lips as they shopped together, the way it had slowly disappeared as Ben revealed the events of the day previous. He remembers how their quiet conversations then—never broaching the topic, of course—seemed like a step in the right direction, and wonders how many steps back Ben has taken them. Sometime it feels like he’s playing Snakes and Ladders, each movement closer to Balth undermined by the rules or Ben or whatever it is that’s stuck between them. It doesn’t matter anyway, not really. He just wants Balth to be happy.

Peter turns the word _love_ in his mind. It fits what Balth is to him more accurately than _like_ or _crush_. _I love him_ , he thinks and the words stab at his heart. Because isn’t love supposed to fix everything? Isn’t it supposed to set him free, like Balthazar’s favourite quote from last year claimed? He wonders if it’s still his favourite, if he still even believes it. Probably not; since when had love done anything good for either of them in recent times?

A few minutes before curfew, he hears the front door slam and Beatrice’s raised voice a moment later.

“What the hell, Ben?” she demands, voice muffled through walls and doors but still distinguishable. “ _Hero_ called me—Hero, who is currently in Auckland—to tell me that you’ve gone overboard with the rules _again_. Apparently Balth called Ursula…” Her voice drops, probably in consideration of the subject of her ranting, and Peter takes a deep breath. At least someone might be able to talk some sense into Ben. Before long, though, her voice rises again. “Curfew? You’re going to send us out in the middle of all of this?”

He can’t hear Ben’s answer, but slamming doors and furious stomps tell him the outcome of that particular conversation. There’s a lull in the noise, and then the clatter of plates following two more doors closing. After a few minutes of silence, Peter stands, opening his door quietly and making his way into the kitchen.

Carefully, as silently as he can manage, he grabs a plate and cutlery from the cupboard and heaps it with leftovers from dinner; it was vegan, incidentally, which is probably convenient. Then, he takes down a mug and teabag and puts the water on to boil, tapping on the counter as he waits. Once the water is boiled and the tea made, he takes the plate and mug and walks, as softly as he can, to Balth’s room.

Peter sets them down outside the door, debating for a moment. Then, he knocks quietly. There’s no response.

“Balth?” he calls, just above a whisper. “There’s dinner if you want it, and tea.” He runs a hand through his hair, sighing. “We didn’t get to eat lunch, so please try eat something.” He turns to go, but the door opens behind him and he turns back quickly.

Balthazar looks incredibly small, bundled in a blanket, his hair flat over his forehead. His eyes don’t meet Peter’s as he picks up his food. “Thanks,” he says, forcing a half-smile that could not be more fake.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says, because there is nothing he can say to fix it, nothing he can do. “I should’ve…”

“Nah,” Balth shakes his head, eyes still on the floor. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“You don’t deserve this.”

“Neither do you, though.”

Peter shrugs; he’s used to it by now, not that it makes it okay. It’s obviously affected Balth more, though, for whatever reason he can’t quite fathom. He wants to ask how he is, how he’s coping with it, what he can do to help, but he knows he can’t. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?” he says instead.

Balth nods, and disappears back into his room. Peter hasn’t seen him smile genuinely in over a day.

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of bleugh but I have emotions. Find me on [tumblr](http://www.peterdonalduck.tumblr.com/)


End file.
